Distress
by Kagii
Summary: [Saw 1, not Saw II compliant] A year after being rescued, Adam's life has fallen apart again and, delirious with pain, he calls on Lawrence for help. The story ensues. Rather anecdotal. This is a bad summary, really Rated T for language. it was M, but I c
1. Chapter 1

**Rated M for language and some kindof adult situations.  
**

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He was dying. He knew it. Nothing could feel this bad and not be death.

Adam was curled up on his ratty bed in his ratty apartment feeling pain stab through his chest and stomach. A year ago today he'd been trapped in that fucking bathroom feeling this exact same pain. After Lawrence had left him, he'd quickly spiraled downwards into hysteria and panic. He'd screamed his voice raw, he'd cried, and then he began to feel the horrible pain. Adam had hoped that death-by-dehydration would be smooth and easy and painless, but everything was hurting him. The pain had grown out from his shoulder and overwhelmed him. He had lost himself somewhere among the pain and heart-wrenching depression. Lying there on the filthy bathroom floor, doubled over in pain, he whimpered and cried himself into unconsciousness.

His rescue was a vague and fuzzy memory. He had been delusional, on the verge of death. He had sat in the hospital for a month, slowly recovering and barely speaking. He felt desperately alone, more so than when he had been in the bathroom. The nurses and doctors hardly spoke to him, hardly looked at him, and Lawrence was away in another wing and Adam was discouraged to visit. It wasn't fair, but they said Lawrence wasn't stable enough for visitors who weren't family. Adam felt cheated. He felt that he and Lawrence might as well be as close as family, that Lawrence would want to see him the moment he regained consciousness. He had wandered over once, only to be shooed away by busy doctors fighting for Lawrence's life and a harsh and cold look from his wife. She, Allison, had glared at him with such intensity that Adam had stopped dead in his tracks. His shoulder ached and under her searching eyes, he felt awkward dragging around the liquids that dripped into his system through a series of IVs. The doctors had explained to him that most of them were to keep infection controlled and out of his shoulder. Allison was judging him, he could tell. She was trying to decipher what was so important about this guy that had been so worth saving. She was trying to see what was so remarkable about him that the only word Lawrence had said when he'd fluttered into consciousness had been, 'Adam'. Adam stared back at her, feeling thoroughly inadequate. She was a graceful, dignified, strong woman and what was he? A clumsy, awkward, lying, weak young man who had nothing going for him. There was one thing he could say for himself though, he had some shred of dignity. He had begged for pants for a week and eventually the nurses had given him a pair of scrubs to wear. At least he wasn't half naked in front of Lawrence's wife.

The scar on Adam's shoulder was evident to him every time he changed his shirt or took a shower. It was just now beginning to fade, but just looking at it still made him shudder.

Adam left the hospital and returned to his shit-hole apartment. Despite his lurking fear of the place, he had no where else to go. His apartment, with its peeling dark red paint and dark corners, terrified him. He had returned home in terror, and the feeling hadn't left him for weeks. Climbing the stairs to his apartment, Adam had felt his heart pounding in his chest. There was police tape on his door. Cringing, he ripped it off and pushed the door open. Unlocked. The police hadn't even bothered to lock his door on the way out. Everything was in its place when he walked in. At least he hadn't been robbed blind. The shattered remains of the doll had been removed, but his camera still sat on the floor in front of the open closet door. What had he been thinking? Why hadn't he just run out of the apartment when that horrible, ominous feeling had washed over him? Why hadn't he run after that doll had laughed at him? Adam was beginning to think that he was stupid almost to the point of retardation at times. Had he thought he could really fight off whoever was in his apartment? Who was he kidding? He hadn't eaten in two days. Awaiting his next paycheck, Adam had lived off water. The lens of his camera had broken. The glass had shattered all over the floor when he'd dropped it. There were spatters of blood on the hard wood, along with a few scuff marks. Adam rubbed his head. Had he really bled?

He and Lawrence had exchanged good-byes, handshakes, one hesitant and forced hug and then Lawrence had waved good-bye and never looked back. He had gone off with his family and, as far as Adam knew, was living happily ever after on a beach somewhere. Adam certainly hadn't heard from him over the past year. Not once. It broke his heart. He had never felt so alone in his life. They had been so close, even though they'd only known each other for about fourteen hours, Adam felt that they'd stay, and he hated the word but, friends. He was in his time of most need, and above everything else, he needed a friend. But without Lawrence, that was something he didn't have.

That first night home Adam had sat on his bed for hours, his knees at his chest, his elbows on his knees and his hands in his hair. Curled up into a ball on his bed, Adam tried to keep the horrible fear from overwhelming him and putting him into a panicked frenzy. He didn't sleep at all that night, or the following night. He'd spent those hours just sitting and staring and whimpering. He felt pathetic. After a week, he was sleeping, but fitfully. He still hadn't ventured into his darkroom. Adam found himself spending as much time out of his apartment as possible. He wandered around looking at things he couldn't dream of affording. Thank god he didn't have to pay medical bills (the city and the hospital said they'd absorb the cost of his care due to the 'circumstances surrounding his injuries, as well as his financial status'. Adam was relatively certain Lawrence would have to pay his bills) or else he wouldn't have enough money to eat. He didn't have to pay his hospital bill because he'd been tortured by a serial killer, shot, and to top it all off, he was poor. He hated their pity, but was begrudgingly thankful for it. For months he avoided his apartment as much as possible by inspecting paint supplies and colors for when he would re-paint his apartment. The red was creepy and old. It scared him. So far, he had decided on a blue, or maybe gray. He looked at new beds, new mattresses. He had bought his mattress used when he'd moved into the apartment. It had a mysterious stain on it that he feared might be blood. He wanted all new furniture, but couldn't afford it. He would prefer a whole new apartment, but there was no way he could ever have the funds for that. Paying the rent on the piece of shit he currently lived in was hard enough. He was always on the lookout for a legitimate job. He searched the Classifieds every day for some newspaper or magazine wanting a photographer. Of course, first he would need to get up the money to replace the lens for his camera, but that would happen.

And now, a year later the only thing he had accomplished was to get a new lens for his camera. He was feeling the exact pain as before. It was horrible and mind-numbing. He was bent over himself on his bed screaming silently as the pain coursed through his body. He was so tired and agonized he felt nauseous. On top of everything else, Adam felt like he was about to puke up everything he had forced down his throat over the past day. Tears leaked angrily from his eyes. It hurt so horribly. This was what dying had felt like. Stabbing pain, and burning... god! It felt like his chest was on fire! He could barely move he was in so much pain. His vision became blurry. His walls were still peeling red paint. He was still sleeping on a used mattress. He still didn't have a real job. He was working as a free-lance photographer for newspapers, but none of them would chance hiring him full time. And now this sudden and unexplainable debilitating pain. He reached for the phone, missing by a wide margin and fumbling around his bedside table until his fingers finally closed around the receiver. Pulling it towards him, he dialed the only number he could think of. It rang for what seemed like forever. Finally, someone picked up.

"Hello?"

"Lawrence..." He cried quietly. "I need you... I'm dying... please... please..." On the other side of the phone, there was silence. Adam found himself sobbing harder and harder with each passing moment.

"Who... who is this?" Through his cries, Adam knew it was Lawrence on the other side, but he didn't recognize him.

"It's Adam! Adam Faulkner!" His voice cracked miserably. There was an audible gasp.

"Oh... oh god, I'm sorry. What's wrong? Where are you?"

"I'm dying! I'm fucking dying!" He heard Lawrence's wife ask who was on the phone. There was a rustling of paper.

"Okay, where are you?" Adam rattled off his address. "I'm coming, okay? We'll get you help."

"God it hurts, Lawrence. It hurts so fuckin' bad."

"I'm coming." With that, there was a click and Lawrence had hung up. Digging his heels into the bed, Adam rolled onto his back, and then commenced to roll off the bed itself and hit the floor hard.

--

Next thing he knew he was writhing on the ground and someone was holding his shoulders down. The heel of their hand was in his scarred shoulder, and the pain was now twice as intense.

"Adam! Adam, look at me!" Blearily dragging his eyes open, Adam saw a mess of blonde and blue. "Take a deep breath and calm down." Adam tried. He took a few deep and quavering breaths. His eyes focused.

"L-Lawrence?"

"Yea, it's me. Where does it hurt?"

"Everywhere..." He felt himself being pulled forwards. Lawrence was sitting him up. The nausea rose again and this time Adam vomited all over his floor. Lawrence pulled a face and continued to pull Adam upwards. He helped him onto the bed. Adam collapsed, his chest heaving as he drew short, rough gasps for air.

--

Months before, his girlfriend, the feminist vegan punk, had come crawling (or rather, stomping in the heaviest pair of boots she owned) back to his door to 'console him after his horrible ordeal.' Like always, he had been too weak to say 'no' and she had re-entered his life. She didn't really care about him, just like before. Just like before, he hated every moment he was forced to spend with her. The sex was rough and painful and Adam felt like his body was breaking every time. Afterwards, it was clear he was imagining it, that nothing was actually broken, but it hurt all the same. He would be bruised and sore for days afterwards. A broken collar bone here, a fractured rib there. The internal bleeding, kidney punches, concussions from smashing his head against the wall, dislocated jaw, the severe writhing pain she left him in meant nothing to her. She left him hurting in ways that he had never felt before; where the humiliation hurt worse than the pain. When she was done with him, she would curl up against his broken body and run her fingers along his bruised ribs, one by one. Weeping openly, he would lie against the wall and try and ignore her.

"Oh Adam," she said, noticing his tears. "I know. It's so beautiful." This only made him cry harder.

Sex became a vague memory of pain and domination for him. He thought about it as little as possible, but he was constantly sore, so there wasn't much he could do. After a while, he stopped trying to fight her at all. It felt like rape every time, even though he never actually said 'no'. She fucked him because she wanted to. God though, he sure as hell didn't want it. He definitely didn't want it. Ever. And never like that. One night, he had turned away from her, feeling the aches and pains and crying again. She wrapped an arm around him. He shuddered.

"Oh Adam, I think I'm falling in love with you." At that moment, Adam had never felt more repulsed. He had never hated her more.

--

"Adam. Adam!" he was slowly coming to his senses after passing out again. The pain had lessened only slightly. "Hey, Fuckwit!" Surprised by the harsh language, Adam forced himself to focus and open his eyes. Lawrence was leaning over him, blushing lightly. "There you are. Where did you get these bruises?" Adam became aware that he wasn't wearing his shirt. He looked himself over for a moment, deciding whether to lie or not.

"Rough sex." He groaned finally, truthfully. Lawrence chuckled. Obviously, he thought Adam was kidding. Adam stared at him meaningfully. Lawrence's face fell dramatically.

"You're serious?" Adam nodded. Lawrence gaped at him.

"What? Would I joke about having an abusive girlfriend?" He lashed out. He wasn't really angry at Lawrence though, even though some part of him wanted to be. He'd never called his girlfriend 'abusive' before. But now that he'd said it, it seemed to fit. Not like she slapped him around or anything, but she sure didn't treat him well. There was brief pause.

"I'm taking you to a hospital." Lawrence started to pull Adam up, but he pushed him away.

"No." Adam said as forcefully as he could muster. "I can't afford it. I don't have any money." Adam felt the dip in the bed disappear as Lawrence stood up. He could smell the acidic yet sweet scent of vomit and wondered if Lawrence had been kind enough to clean it up for him or not. His eyes found Lawrence again, who was now standing against the wall and shaking his head.

"I can pay for it." Adam stared at him, dried tears burning the corners of his eyes. The last thing he wanted was Lawrence's pity.

"No!" He cried out as the pain doubled suddenly. He started to cry again, rolling over onto his side and curling up, clutching at his sides. "I don't want your fucking pity or your money. I'm fine! I don't need to go to a hospital." He could see Lawrence staring at him from his place against the wall. He looked down on Adam with his forehead furrowed and looking sad. "I'll be fine... I can handle myself..." Adam disintegrated. His buried himself in the sheets and blankets on his bed, digging deep down into them and covering his face but lacking the strength to really get under them. Reduced to a whimpering and sobbing mess, Adam closed his eyes and cursed himself for letting Lawrence see him like this. He felt the other side of the bed get heavy as Lawrence lied down next to him again.

"Adam?" He asked softly. Adam slowly disentangled himself from the bed linens and, feeling like a child, settled himself on the bed, his cheek nuzzled among the folds of his comforter. "What's your girlfriend's name?"

"What do you care?" Adam grumbled in reply, feeling bitterness surge through him. He hated her and he hated himself for being unable to push her away. '_Quick,_' he thought, '_someone_ _distract me before I throw myself out a window._'

"I'm just curious, Adam. I'm trying to get you to stop moping around and hurting yourself."

"Hurting myself?" He cried indignantly, leaping up to support himself on his elbows.

"Listen to you, you sound like a child. Refusing to go to a hospital even though you're in serious pain."

"Well I've always been a child to you, haven't I?" Angrily, Adam stared down at the bed. Lawrence sighed, exasperated.

"No. You're childish at times, but you're not a child."

"You say that like you know me." Adam hoped this would remind Lawrence that he hadn't even sent Adam a note over the past year. "You knew me for the worst fourteen hours of my whole fucking life and I thought we connected or some shit and then you just walked away. Like nothing fucking happened! Like I didn't even exist anymore! Like I didn't need you anymore!" Adam paused briefly, trying to avoid Lawrence's eyes. He quickly tried to change the subject. "It's been a fucking year, Larry," He added maliciously, hating the name. "A year to the fucking day." Aware of how much he was cursing but not caring, Adam sat up, dragging his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around his knees. He felt like crying again, but didn't want to. Neither of them moved for a long time. Finally, Lawrence sat up and hesitantly put a hand on Adams shoulder.

"I know that. I know what day it is." He didn't apologize for not being there though. He let that hang heavily in the still air. Adam groaned and collapsed backwards onto the bed again. "Are you feeling better?" The real reason Adam hadn't wanted to go to a hospital, even though he couldn't afford it, was because he had figured out that his pain was all in his head. He had somehow known that it was probably some messed up psychological thing that was representing itself through physical pain or something. Yes, he had been hurting, seriously, but he knew it would pass. He needed to distract himself and the pain that was mostly memories would dissipate. He didn't understand why it had hurt so badly, why it had been so real, but he knew that it hurt and that was enough. And God had it hurt! His chest was still aching, but it wasn't so terrible anymore.

Adam shrugged. Yes, he was feeling better but he didn't want to admit it.

"So, what's her name?" Adam scoffed. It was unbelievable that the conversation had come back to this.

"April." He mumbled. "I hate her." He added quietly, unsure Lawrence had heard him and glad for it.

"And what? She hits you?" Adam laughed in spite of himself.

"I told you. Rough sex." With a chuckle, Lawrence leaned back on the bed again.

"Where'd you get this bed? It's so..." He searched for a word that he hoped wouldn't be too offensive to Adam, "worn." Adam smiled and told him about buying it used with the apartment. When he told him about the maybe-blood stain, Lawrence cringed with a smile on his lips. "That's disgusting. We're probably getting VD's just by sitting on it."

"You would know. You're the doctor. And thanks a lot." Adam sighed sarcastically. "Are you going to suggest I get a new one now?" Lawrence smirked playfully.

"Of course not. You can't afford it, remember?" Adam groaned.

"Don't remind me." Rubbing his chest, Adam tried to gauge how much pain he was in. It had been about a ten on the pain scale and had now subsided to about a four, he figured.

"Want to get something to eat?" Lawrence asked quietly. Adam's apartment gave a loud creak. "This place is pretty creepy," he added under his breath, eager to leave.

"Like I don't know it," Adam sighed and gave a shudder as he looked around his frightening, shadowy apartment. Lately, he had been considering painting it yellow -- when he had the money, of course. "And yea, I'd love to eat something. It's been days," he said, half-joking half-serious. "But would you like to look at my empty wallet? I've trained a moth to fly out of it and then come home. I named it Nick." Smiling, Lawrence stood up and offered his hand to the young man still collapsed on his ratty bed.

"I'll pay for it this time. If you can find it in yourself to accept my generosity." As if by fate, at that perfectly timed moment, Adam's stomach gave a low rumble.

"Well..." He said, taking Lawrence hand to pull himself up off the bed. "I guess I could. Just this once." They both smiled. "But we're not taking any detour or... or... road trip to the hospital, okay?" The older man just smirked.

"Fine. Get some shoes on, let's go."

Tying up his old, falling apart sneakers, Adam noticed the fading scars on his fingers. He hadn't looked at them in months; he had practically forgotten they were there at all. After being left alone in the dark bathroom a year ago he had desperately crawled to the bathtub and stumbled into it. He had bruised up his knees pretty bad, but ignored the pain and slid towards the drain. Unsure if there was an S-curve in the pipe that might catch the key, and not really thinking about it, Adam had scrounged around in the drain for almost an hour trying to feel for the key. He had been completely unsuccessful; it was gone. The edges of the drain were unusually rough and had torn up each of his fingers between the first two joints. Finally, bleeding, sore and defeated, Adam had slumped against the pipes and screamed and cried until he was delirious.

"What's taking so long down there?" Lawrence said, shaking Adam from his thoughts. With a smile, Adam stood up, shaking his head.

"Nothing. Sorry." And with that, the pair went to leave Adams apartment. On the way out, Adam casually pointed out the closet from which he had been attacked. It seemed important to him that Lawrence know. On the way out, Adam carefully locked his door and checked it twice before storing his house key safely into his deepest pocket.

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**I hope you liked it. Review please! More to come. eventually, I'm a slow and meticulous writer. **


	2. Chapter 2

**2: **

Some twenty minutes later, having rejected two slightly sketchy diners, Lawrence and Adam stepped into a half-restaurant, half-diner ten blocks from Adam's apartment. It had been an awkward walk over, as Adam felt inclined to slow his step so he wouldn't walk too far ahead of Lawrence, who had a distinctive, slow limp to his gait. In turn, Adam would trip over his own feet and embarrass himself every block or two. By the time they reached the diner Adam was considering moving to the country and never walking anywhere again. A cold wind blew through the half open door and Adam tugged his flannel over-shirt around himself tightly. He barely remembered putting it on, but he was glad for it. They settled themselves into a booth in the corner. Adam's eyes were continually dancing around the room, searching for dangers. He had grown increasingly paranoid over the past year. Occasionally, his face would twitch as pain shot through his chest and he would cringe. He was trying his best to hide it, but not doing so well.

"So." Lawrence began awkwardly. "This girlfriend of yours... does she live with you?" He wished he knew how to make better small talk.

Adam scoffed and said, "No, thank god." He looked over his shoulder briefly before continuing. "But if she wanted to she would."

"What do you mean?" Adam hated this conversation already. He hated talking about his girlfriend. If it were up to him she wouldn't be anywhere near him.

"No matter what I say or do, she does whatever the hell she wants. I can't stop her." He felt like such a pussy. Adam wanted to this conversation to end as soon as possible. Lawrence opened his mouth to say something, just as a waitress in a red apron walked up to them. Adam sighed in relief.

"What can I get you boys?" She was pretty, with long, dark wavy hair and dark eyes. Adam's expression changed almost instantly. His glum exterior was replaced by a vibrant, smiling young man that Lawrence had never met. Lawrence stifled a grin; Adam was obviously considering trying to flirt with her. She smiled at them openly, but it looked fake, forced.

"Can I smoke in here?" Adam asked. The waitress smiled and nodded and handed them menus. She asked for drink orders. Lawrence ordered a beer, and Adam asked for an iced tea. The waitress nodded again and walked off. Lawrence stared at Adam with a questioning gaze. In turn, Adam leaned against the table on one elbow and fumbled with a pack of cigarettes with his other hand. He eventually freed one and leaned back from the table to retrieve his lighter. Like everything Adam owned, it was cheap and worn. It took him three tries to get it to light. Relaxing against the vinyl of the booth's seat, Adam lit his cigarette and took a long drag. A long moment passed and then Lawrence asked, curiously, "Iced tea?" Adam exhaled with a laugh.

"I thought you were gonna ask about my smoking." He leaned forward against the table again. He had been concerned that Lawrence would jump down his throat about smoking, seeing as he was a doctor, a fucking _oncologist_, after all.

"No." Lawrence stared him down coolly, awaiting an answer.

"Well," He said after a long moment, taking another deep pull off his cigarette. "One of us has to be the designated driver." Lawrence laughed; Adam smirked, feeling clever. The waitress returned bearing drinks. She winked at Adam, who blushed on cue. Allowing his cigarette to dangle haphazardly from his lips, Adam reached across the table and plucked up four sugar packets. He poured the sugar into his tea two at a time, stirring quickly and keeping his eyes locked on the whirlpool that he was creating.

He had tried quitting after the bathroom. He had really tried to drop all his vices. He stopped drinking, stopped smoking, stopped taking pictures for money. He had gone cold-turkey on all of them, only to find himself shivering and puking his way through withdrawal a week later and lacking the funds to buy even a bottle of Aspirin. It was at this point that he began to put everything important to him next to his bed. The phone was a mere half foot away. His camera and film were all right there. During those few days of withdrawal he had wasted an entire roll of film on photos of his ceiling and bedroom. The few books he owned and liked to read migrated under the outer rim of his bed. Mostly they were trashy novels (mostly Michael Crichton; he somehow owned four copies of Jurassic Park), but there were two classics: a copy of Moby Dick that he had never read and Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray that he wasn't sure how he'd acquired it. There was a Nietzsche book under there too, but he never touched it. He had bought it to seem smart and intellectual, but it turned out that the kind of people he associated himself with didn't care whether he owned Nietzsche or not. There were piles of pictures and scraps of paper littered around the room. Being confined to his bed had encouraged him to consolidate everything he owned. However, he quickly became sick of being sick and had started smoking again, at which point his careful organization of important objects lost its necessity. His first cigarette had felt heaven sent. Next of his vices to return were his 10 a.m. visits to bars where he would order a pitcher of Miller High Life, the champagne of beers, and drink himself sick. The bartenders all watched him with scrutinizing eyes. No bartender wanted an alcohol-poisoned dead kid on their hands. They led to annoying police investigations and questions and all that, Adam figured, hampered business.

Finally, after exhausting all other options, Adam began answering the calls for his voyeur services again. He wasn't proud of it, he never had been, but he did it anyway.

"That's a lot of sugar." Lawrence said awkwardly.

"I like it sweet." Adam replied dryly. He continued to avoid looking at Lawrence by looking everywhere else in the restaurant. There was a couple sitting at a table by the window, leaning close into each other and talking, laughing. The woman smiled coyly too often for Adam's comfort. "I haven't eaten in a place with waiters in a while."

"Really?"

"Yea." Still holding the cigarette in his mouth, Adam exhaled. Over the years, he had become exceptionally skilled at smoking. At age fourteen, he had smoked his first cigarette. One of his older friends had bought a pack for him and Adam had waited until both of his parents were out of the house to open his bathroom window, lean out, and light up. He'd smoked it hesitantly, determined not to cough even once on the smoke. And so began an on and off fourteen year smoking habit. He slowly flipped through the menu, glancing over everything. His chest and stomach still hurt, so he really wasn't in the mood for eating anything at all. Nothing looked good. Here he was, being treated to a meal, and he was in one of those moods where he just didn't feel like eating, even though he was hungry. He silently berated himself for it.

"Get whatever you want, okay?" Lawrence said abruptly. Adam stared at him. There was a long pause as Lawrence groped for words. He wanted to say that it didn't look like Adam ate enough, but didn't want to be that blunt.

"Sure." It reminded him of his second night back with his girlfriend. She had arrived unexpectedly bearing Chinese food, and though he'd been grateful for the meal, the rest of the evening had been uncomfortable for him. She had talked at him as he sat across from her not really listening, but listening close enough that he couldn't really let his mind wander. It had been miserable, but he was a little worried that if she caught him not listening she would punch him in what she considered a joking manner and break his arm. At least that evening had ended in sex, however painful it had been. Adam wondered if she would show up at his apartment tonight.

"Have you talked to your parents?" Adam jumped at the question. It came out of left field and he wasn't sure how to respond.

"When?"

"Lately. Since... you know." Since a year ago. Adam chewed at the inside of his cheek for a moment.

"No."

"Not for the past year?" Lawrence was aghast. Adam tapped the ashes off the end of his cigarette and took a couple more deep draws off it.

"On my birthday. My mom called." Adam was reluctant to talk about his family. He hadn't called them after the incident in the bathroom. He wasn't even sure they knew about it. They probably knew about Jigsaw, an interesting killer like that didn't stay out of the national news, but they might not know he was involved. He hadn't told them because the last thing he wanted was his mother and sister and maybe father flying out and trying to comfort him. He didn't need them hassling him about his shitty apartment or meeting his girlfriend and saying what a nice girl she was or asking him about his work. If they did know though, he was glad they were following his lead and not mentioning it. When his mother phoned on his birthday, mid-January, a good five months after the bathroom, they chatted for a few minutes. The phone was passed to his sister who was home from her first year at college. She was so much younger than him. They had never had anything in common, and their clipped conversation proved it. His mother was on the phone again, talking about home and how she was sorry his father wasn't around to wish him a Happy 28th, but he'd been so busy lately.

Eventually, the conversation had lulled into a comfortable silence and then his mother asked, softly and with concern, "Adam, honey, are you all right?" It sounded like an 'are you feeling all right, emotionally?' sort of question. Adam laughed it off and responded with a quick, "yes." She pushed him for a moment, "are you sure?" He had felt so old. It was because he could remember being younger. He could remember the playful innocence of ten, or the angsty, too-cool-for-life attitude of fifteen. He clearly remembered the freedom of college at eighteen. The feeling of wasted years when he graduated with a degree in the arts (subset photography) and a minor in English at twenty-one. The arrogance of living alone at twenty-two. The loneliness of being alone at twenty-three. The blur of the next five years that had brought him to this point. Most prominent of his vague memories of the past five years had been the crystal clear ones of those fourteen hours. Twenty-eight... too old for his mother to be asking if he was alright. Almost too old to be in contact with his mother at all. It was so strange speaking with her. Adam had purposefully left home and disconnected himself from it as much as possible. Going back in anyway felt wrong and made him feel shaky and uncomfortable. Most of all, he hated explaining his messed-up life to his mother who only wanted the best for him. Finally, he had assured her that he was alright and encouraged her to say hello to his dad for him. She had hung up first. Click. Dial tone. That evening, he had curled up on his bed and cried.

"You didn't call before that?" Adam knew what Lawrence was referring to, and ignored it.

"No." For emphasis, Adam ground out his cigarette. He hadn't quite been finished with it though, and found himself regretting his action. With a sigh, he resisted the urge to light another one.

The rest of dinner passed without another word being spoken. It was awkward. Adam thought about starting a new conversation multiple times but never said anything. He didn't know what to say. Hundreds of questions went through his mind about Lawrence's family and his life now and why he hadn't called or written or anything over the past year. Two or three times Lawrence looked like he was about to say something, but didn't. They walked back to Adam's apartment building, up the three flights of stairs and down the hallway to his apartment. Lawrence waited patiently as Adam unlocked his door and stepped beyond the threshold.

"Well, uh," Adam stumbled over his words. "Thanks for dinner."

"Yea, sure. Anytime." Adam nodded.

"Great. I'll see you around, maybe?" Fumbling with the door knob, Adam idly swung the door wide open and then half closed. Lawrence smiled at this, nodding with a grin at Adams inability to stay still. In the ensuing silence, Adam ruffled his hair, rubbed at his chest, glanced over his shoulder into the darkness of his apartment. Neither knew how to finish this encounter. Finally, Lawrence turned to walk away. He was halfway down the hall when Adam spoke. "Lawrence," He called out before he even knew he was talking. Lawrence stopped with a slight stumble and turned back around. "Why... why did you just leave me like that?" He said softly, feeling weak and tired. Lawrence stared at him for a long moment.

"I wanted to just forget about it. I'm sorry, but I couldn't..." His words trailed off, but Adam knew what he meant. "I just couldn't." With that, he turned on his heel and strode off. Adam watched him go, staring after him. The creaking quiet of the hallway quickly sent shivers down his spine though, and he shut the door tightly and threw the deadbolt. For a long moment, he leaned against the coolness of the door, leaning his forehead against it and trying to calm himself. He felt on the verge of tears, like he had all day. His only hope was that his girlfriend wouldn't decide to come over. Moving towards his bedroom, he decided that if she started knocking, he wouldn't answer the door. He couldn't remember if she had a key or not.

--

The next morning Adam awoke feeling stiff and irritable. He'd fallen asleep upside down again, he realized, with his head at the foot of the bed, which explained the stiffness. His mouth felt dry and tasted awful. Like he'd vomited and forgotten about it. Thinking back, he hadn't brushed his teeth since yesterday morning, and he had vomited in the time in-between. The thought of this made him sick and he stumbled into his bathroom only to find himself heaving the contents of his stomach into the toilet. His eyes hurt. Adam brushed his teeth numbly, only to puke up stomach acid a minute later. After brushing his teeth one more time, Adam collapsed back onto his bed and slept most of the day away.

Two-thirds of the time he was half-conscious. A few times he considered going down to the bar across the street, but that would involve moving and there wasn't enough strength in his body for that. So he just slept. By the evening, the building had grown practically silent. Adam was lying on his bed, upside down again, listening to his own breathing. He was so aware of his inhales and exhales that when he stopped forcing himself to breathe, he stopped breathing all together and it scared him. This happened to him occasionally. He would become so aware of his breathing that he had to control it or else he'd suffocate. The sound of a door creaking open shook him violently awake. It was his door, he knew it. Holding his breath, Adam listened carefully, straining for a voice. His girlfriend always called out when she came in, so it couldn't be her. There was no sound. Someone else was in his apartment and Adam could feel himself panicking, beginning to loose control of his fear. He leapt off his bed quietly and snuck towards the door. He could hear the person moving around in the kitchen. His heart was pounding in his ears. On his way, but without stopping, Adam glanced around for a weapon of any sort. There was nothing. Lying on his battered coffee table was a kitchen knife, and he snatched it up, tucking it up against his wrist. He knew it would be useless in a struggle, but having it comforted him. A voice in his head convinced him that he could stab it between a persons ribs into their lungs if he had to. After years of being unsure, Adam knew now that he could kill a man if he was forced too. He'd done it before.

Sneaking around the corner into the kitchen, Adam braced himself for the worst possible thing he could imagine. Taking a deep breath, he leapt around the corner only to be confronted with his tall and overbearing girlfriend calmly unpacking groceries. He fell back with an audible sound of relief. His heart was pounding so hard. She didn't even noticed as he stumbled back against the wall and dropped the knife with a clatter. He closed his eyes, taking slow breaths and trying to slow his heartbeat. Finally, his girlfriend turned around to see him.

"Oh! Adam! There you are. I thought you were sleeping." He stared at her, shaking. "I didn't want to wake you up." She moved around the kitchen quickly and efficiently, her dyed, dark hair swishing gracefully. "Wow, you're pale." She laughed at him pleasantly, still unpacking.

"I...I thought I was being robbed." He mumbled numbly. He felt far away, distant, an observer. "Or kidnapped." He whispered. She didn't hear him.

"You're so funny, Adam." She giggled and punched him in the shoulder, too hard for his taste. He cringed but forced a smile.

"Sure."

"Are you hungry?" Adam's stomach churned just thinking about it. He shook his head. His girlfriend just shrugged. "Aren't you going to thank me for shopping for you?" In all honestly, Adam hated it when she shopped for him, because she never bought anything he liked or wanted. No meats, no sugars. It was terrible. He forced himself to thank her. "Feeling better?"

"Huh?" She giggled and punched him again.

"I asked if you were feeling better." Adam stared at her questioningly. His mind was still fuzzy from sleeping so much. He'd also just expelled the contents of his stomach, which seemed self-explanatory to him. Then he remembered she hadn't been around when he'd puked. He wondered about her reaction if he said he was still feeling shitty. Option one, the shitty option, was that she would insist on coddling him and would hang around for days. Option two, the preferred one, was that she would say she didn't want to catch whatever he had and she would desert him for days. He'd have to risk it.

"Not really." He groaned, putting on the same sick act he'd used in high school. He drooped his eyelids as if the light hurt his eyes (which it did), slouched and looked generally pathetic.

"Oh, poor baby!" She rushed over to him and hugged him and ran her hands through his hair. Looked like he was out of luck for tonight.

"I'm just really tired."

"Maybe it's mono!" She exclaimed, beginning to jostle him back towards his bedroom. On the way, she told a long and arduous story about her friend or cousin or something that got mono and was in bed for a week.

"No, I'm just... stressed and tired. It's... You know..." He'd never used his traumatic experience to get pity or financial help or anything, but here he was, on the path towards using it towards getting her out of his apartment for the night. "It's that time of year." He said quietly. He hated himself for it already.

"Oh... of course..." she said, nodding knowingly. Adam wanted to just run at that moment, just turn around and sprint out the door. But he didn't. He felt desperate to be out in the fresh air and away from his girlfriend and maybe vomiting some more. He felt sick again. "I'm so sorry. I forgot." He shrugged. His whole life, Adam had been a fantastic liar. This was no exception. He wasn't this torn up about it, but she was buying it. Lying was how he avoided the police. When he was seventeen he avoided being expelled by saying the kid he had assaulted and viciously beaten (broken nose, broken ribs, some deep scratches, a concussion and some fierce bruising) had been abusing him for years and that the fight was self-defense. He had tearfully explained to the principal and rent-a-cop at his school that the kid had even stabbed him once. He showed them the scar from when Scott Tibbs had stuck him with a nail. They gasped and shook their heads. He quietly explained that he thought maybe there was abuse in that family that carried over into the child's social life. In truth, Adam had just gotten frustrated and pissed off at this kid for almost no reason and with no history of prior abuse at all. One wrong comment and Adam had leapt on him like a hyena, complete with ripping and tearing. He was not a fighter; everyone who observed the fight said that while it was pretty nasty, Adam looked like a wuss beating his kid up. But he got away with it because the administrators believed the word of poor, sniffling Adam Faulkner over pouty, previous-record-of-bad-behavior kid. Adam left high school with a clean slate. The real police hadn't even been involved that time.

His mother had said they would get him a therapist to deal with his 'anger issue', but she never got around to it. He was glad. To Adam, getting a psychiatrist meant you were crazy, which he didn't think he was.

His girlfriend led him to his bed and he leaned back onto it. She sat down next to him, running her fingers along his sternum. He tasted bile in the back of his throat.

"Did you throw up in here?" She asked. Adam groaned and rolled over. He quickly dozed off and barely noticed when his girlfriend turned off the lights and kissed him on the forehead and left. It was uncharacteristically sweet of her.

That night, he dreamt that he was walking through a series of connected rooms, but the floor kept changing directions on him. Sometimes it was above him, sometimes off to the left. This kept him constantly off balance. He found it almost impossible to keep his eyes open as he worked his way from room to room. He kept falling down and loosing his way and getting upended. He felt like there was something urgent he needed to get to, but couldn't remember what.

It was unsettling enough that he woke up in a cold sweat. His room looked bleak. His girlfriend had left a note on his bedside table that read, "_Hope you're feeling better. There's a protest downtown I want us to check out Wed. Don't make plans! Love you! Ciao! -April_" in curly, frivolous handwriting. She wasn't so angry lately, Adam thought. He read the note again fondly. For all the times he hated her, he actually kind of liked her when she wasn't around. Too bad he wasn't going to any damn protest and there was no way she would be able to talk him into. She would probably end up beating the shit out of him until he agreed to go, but for now he could refuse stubbornly because she wasn't around to treat him badly.

He pried himself from bed, feeling sticky. His head hurt, but he couldn't imagine why. He shuffled to the kitchen. He had slept in his jeans again, and they felt filthy against his skin. Adam searched through his refrigerator for anything to eat. Nothing looked even half appetizing. He noted that his fridge wasn't getting very cold anymore. He cursed excessively about it. He felt like shit and had already decided that today was going to be another shitty day where he sat at home and moped. If he was feeling the least bit productive he would consider finally opening the door to his dark room. He never opened it, but could imagine what it would be like when he finally pulled together the nerve to turn that fucking handle and open it up again. When he finally pried the door open, there would be an overwhelming rush of chemical smell. They would have all evaporated and so he would have to wait a little while before he could go in without coughing or getting cancer. All of the pictures he had taken of Lawrence would still be there, hanging by clothes pins. He imagined himself taking them down one by one and putting them in an envelope and mailing them to Lawrence. Maybe he'd keep a couple of the better ones for himself. He would have to spend hours washing out the basins and then he'd probably need to buy more chemicals. It would be a rewarding experience to clean out his dark room, but for now it was still too dark and too creepy and too fear-inducing to want to attempt going in.

In an act of adult rebellion, Adam found himself eating ice cream from the carton for breakfast. He was almost grinning by the time he went to check the mail. Adam only owned one clock that resided on his bedside table and somehow was always an hour fast or slow, which meant he was usually late for the rare plans that he had. He had neglected to check it this morning, so he was checking his mail just to have something to do. There might not anything there anyway. Adam never got mail except for the occasional bill. Tucking his house key into his pocket, he stepped out into the hallway, locked the door, and ambled down the stairs to the front of the building. He waved and nodded to the occasional neighbor he passed. He even smiled at the pretty single mother who lived a floor below him. He liked her; she was usually kind for this part of town and helped him out when he needed it. Her kid was even okay, quiet and reserved, which Adam thought was the best kind of kid.

He was surprised to see that his mailbox finally had his name on it. For the longest time it had just had his apartment number, but now, in blue embossing tape, it said, "FAULKNER, adam" and then his apartment number. He smiled. Ice cream for breakfast and his name on a mailbox... today had started out pretty good.

------

**So, this chapter is a lot longer than I'd expected. It also came a lot faster than I would've expected, but I'm pretty pleased with it. More to come soon. Honestly. (Please review)  
**


	3. Chapter 3

With half a smile on his face, Adam stuck his key into the mailbox and wiggled it. The lock was usually a little sticky. Finally, the tiny door swung open. To his surprise, a large package fell out into his hands. It was heavy and wrapped in brown paper, with his name lettered in clean, all-caps writing. There was no other mail in the box, which wasn't surprising, but still disappointing. He took the stairs two at a time back up to his apartment. His heart was pounding, he felt like a kid on Christmas. His parents didn't even send him presents anymore. His sister would occasionally send him something small, and inside joke between them most of the time, but that had tapered off in recent years. Back in his apartment, he locked the door and leaned against it, holding the package to his chest. He felt stupid, like a fucking teenage schoolgirl. He quickly went into his bedroom and leapt onto the bed. It gave a sad creak in rebellion. Sitting cross-legged on his bed, he stared in anticipation at the brown package. Why he hadn't ripped it open yet was a mystery to him. He felt around in his pockets for a cigarette, but couldn't find one. Frustrated, he glanced around his room only to find there wasn't a spare carton lying on his bedside table or on the floor. He cursed, wondering how he could've run out and forgotten about it. He glanced back at the package waiting for him and leapt off the bed, grabbed his shoes and his wallet and headed out.

It was colder on the street than he'd expected and he shivered as he walked to the pharmacy. He'd always thought that it was ironic that the pharmacy sold cigarettes. But then, he thought it was funny that condoms and pregnancy tests were shelved next to each other. Sometimes he would buy a pregnancy test just so he could tell people he thought his girlfriend was pregnant. Just like he occasionally would buy lipstick just to see the look on the clerks face. He sometimes told them it was for this little girl that he was fucking. Something in him thought it was hilarious to see them squirm in discomfort. He realized he was really sick inside after saying something like that, but it was mostly worth it. Two wrongs don't make a right, but sometimes they make a laugh. Adam thought it was okay to do something obscene if someone got a chuckle out of it. Who cares if that person was usually him? He arrived at the pharmacy and lingered for a while. Just buying cigarettes made him look addicted, which he probably was, but he didn't want people to know. So, he spent ten minutes looking at soaps and magazines. He ended up buying shampoo and some pens, adding nonchalantly at the end that he'd like a couple packs of cigarettes too. The clerk gave him a look of disgust but turned around anyway to get Adam his cigarettes. It was enough when people on the bus gave him dirty looks, he didn't need some punk kid acting like he had the right to make a judgment about Adam or his habits. As he left the pharmacy though, he felt less satisfied with his purchase. He sighed and rushed back home, his thoughts drifting back to the mysterious package on his bed.

He returned to his apartment feeling windblown. He felt exhausted again, which didn't make any sense to him. Leaving his shampoo and pens on the couch, Adam shuffled back into his bedroom, kicking off his shoes on the way. Before he knew it he was smoking and lying on his stomach on his bed, staring at the package. There was no return address anywhere on it. The air of mystery surrounding it made Adam feel giddy. He felt ridiculous for feeling giddy, but ignored it. Finally, after his cigarette was burnt down almost to the filter, he slowly opened the package. He was even careful not to rip the paper, but unsure why. By the time he was done, he was standing up and grinding out his cigarette. He tugged off the shell of brown paper and a white piece of paper fluttered to the ground.

What remained in his hands was a hardcover book. He turned it over gently, gingerly. The jacket was black and smooth. The front had a large red flower in the lower right corner. The pages were purposefully uneven to make it look old or something. He bent down to pick up the paper that had come with it, and then retreated back onto his bed. It was a note.

_"Adam,"_ It read in the same blocky letters as had been on the wrapping. "_I read something about this book in the paper and thought you might be interested in it. It seems like something you'd like. -Lawrence."_ Adam stared at it. He couldn't understand why Lawrence would send him a book. He also couldn't figure out when Lawrence could have mailed it. Could the postal system really deliver a package in a single day? It seemed unlikely, but then Lawrence wouldn't have possibly mailed it before they'd met up again. It didn't matter all that much, he decided in the end. What mattered was that Lawrence had thought of him and sent him a thick, hardcover novel. Not really thinking about it, he flipped it open to check the price. He chuckled when he saw that it had been blacked out, just like a real gift.

Adam spent the next two and a half days reading and chain smoking. He barely ate or moved from his bed. It wasn't even that the book was especially good, it was pretty good but kind of slow and he kept waiting for things to happen. Then, when things then did happen, they took him by surprise and he would feel physically ill. The book was about a group of American tourists who are vacationing in Mexico and end up being devoured and driven to nasty things by some unpleasantly malicious and sentient vines. It scared him that in the end, one of the characters cut himself apart trying to dig the vines out of himself. Adam had seen it coming and that made it worse. For more than ten hours a day he lay stomach down on his bed, slowly reading and turning the pages. During his few hours of sleep, he would dream about laughing vines that took hold of him but he was too weak to fight them off. When his cigarette would burn down he would grind it out firmly on the floor and light another. He smoked until his eyes burned and he felt sick, but none of it bothered him. He felt sick most of the time anyway. The plain and simple fact that Lawrence had bought the book just for him made Adam want to read it forever. For the first time in a long time he knew someone had done something for him that was only for him. Someone had been thinking of him and it made him genuinely happy, even though the book itself upset him. It was a strange mix of emotions, and he knew it.

Sometimes the overwhelming hopelessness of the book would wash over him and he would sigh and lie still on his bed for a while. He put his face flat against his old, soft comforter and reveled in how safe it felt, how constant it was. He was wallowing in his own self-pity and misery, but he didn't care. This was what he lived for lately: feeling sorry for himself. His life was a mass of un-productivity.

Around the middle of day two, his girlfriend arrived at his apartment. By now he had figured out that she had somehow gotten a key. She called his name as she entered and slammed the door behind her. He could hear her drop her bag and tear off her boots and drop them loudly. He was desperately absorbed in his book and didn't look up when she entered the room. He was lying on the bed again, staring the wall and allowing his hand to dangle off the bed. His cigarette had burnt almost down to the filter and the room was full of smoke. The ash was like a tower off the end of the filter. The book was open a little over halfway next to him on the bed. Adam's girlfriend must have thought he was sleeping, because she suddenly stopped stomping around. He listened to her pad over to him and take the cigarette gently from his hand. He imagined that she had touched him and the ash had fallen like snow.

"What are all these cigarettes doing lying here?" She whispered to herself, looking at the pile of stubs at the foot of the bed. He stirred quietly, making her aware that he was awake. "What are you trying to do?" She continued. "Burn your apartment down?" Adam smiled and shrugged. "What're you doing?" She asked, lying down next to him on the bed. He rolled over to face her. She was lying on her side, perched on her wrist and elbow. Her hair had spread itself gracefully out onto the bedspread. Adam even thought she looked pretty.

"Reading."

"Reading what?" she asked, chuckling as she spoke.

"A book, April." She threw him a look and started to draw patterns in his comforter.

"Where did you get it?" Adam tossed the look right back at her. "Fine. Don't tell me." For the first time, he noticed that April's eyes were green. He'd always thought of them as a hazel-brown, but he could clearly see that her eyes were green. He knew his eyes changed colors in the light. Sometimes they looked the brightest blue, like they actually were, but sometimes his eyes looked brown and dark and then, other times, they looked green. He figured April's eyes changed in the light too, but he'd never noticed. Then again, he had never been looking. They stared at each other for a long moment in which Adam almost forgot that he didn't even like her that much. She looked at him with such a sincere softness in her eyes that he almost forgot she was an accidentally abusive bitch who never listened to him. In the end, he remembered and rolled over onto his stomach again and started reading again. Keeping his eyes locked on the pages, he fumbled with his hands to pull out another cigarette. April stopped him, taking the carton out of his hands. "How long have you been in here?" She asked. Adam was frustrated, but also somehow found himself generally nonplussed.

"I dunno." He shrugged and turned the page.

"Have you eaten?" He shrugged again. It didn't matter; all that mattered was the book.

"I'm so depressed about the people in this book I'm reading." He said, ignoring what she had just said, even though he wasn't really that depressed about it. He was strangely and indescribably upset though. "I think the writer is going to have them all die. I'm worried."

"What?" The sudden change of subject confused his girlfriend.

"But... does everybody have to die in the end? Even Jeff?" His girlfriend stared at him, looking confused and a little disturbed. "Even Amy? Even Eric and Mathias?" She didn't care. Adam had learned that nobody cared when you made statements like that.

"Adam. You need to get out of this room." April said firmly. He shrugged her off and continued reading. For a long time, his girlfriend sat behind him and ran her fingers through his hair. After almost half an hour, she got bored and walked away. A little after that, Adam heard the front door slam shut. He stopped reading for a moment to listen for the click of the lock. When he heard it, he exhaled a breath he didn't know he'd been holding and went back to reading.

He finished the book a day later and was terribly depressed over the ending. He had predicted correctly. They all died. Even Jeff...even Amy. It was crushing him. Adam felt like he was having trouble breathing, like someone was sitting on his chest and compressing his lungs. In things like this, books and movies, at least one person is supposed to live. It's wrong and unsettling when they don't. Eventually, Adam picked up the phone and numbly dialed Lawrence's number. It rang for what felt like forever. His heart was thumping uncomfortably in his chest; there was no reason he should feel this nervous. He was afraid that the moment someone picked up the telephone he would feel the urge to vomit and ruin the entire phone call. After four rings, a breathless voice answered the phone.

"Hello?" Adam choked briefly.

"Hey." 'Fuck' he thought. He'd screwed up already.

"Who is this?" The voice was apprehensive. It was now easy to hear that he was speaking to a woman. He made an educated guess; Lawrence's wife. He couldn't remember her first name.

"Oh, uhm... Adam Faulkner? I'm calling for Lawrence..." He felt terrible. There was a long pause on the other end of the line. "Mrs. Gordon?" Adam asked quietly after almost a minute had passed.

"Yes." She replied briskly. "Just a minute." Adam heard the sound of Mrs. Gordon laying the phone down on a table and walking away. He waited patiently until Lawrence picked up the phone and cleared his throat.

"Adam?" Adam was abruptly unsure of what he wanted to say.

"Hey," was all he managed to spit out.

"Can I help you? Are you alright?"

"Yea. Yea, I'm fine…" He answered quickly. He felt a pressure building in his chest. It was emotion, he knew, but a voice in the back of his mind told him it was vines. Rubbing up and down his sternum with the heel of his hand, Adam continued. "Why did you send me that book?" He said coolly.

"What?"

"Why did you think I would like it?" Adam wondered if he somehow invited getting books about depressing subjects.

"I don't know, Adam, I don't really remember." This sounded like a lie. Adam knew one when he heard one.

"Do you know what happens in it?" Lawrence sighed. Partly, he was curious what Adam wanted, but mostly he wanted to get back to his work and sitting down. His leg was beginning to ache.

"No, no I don't."

"They all die, Lawrence! Every single one of them ends up a pile of bones in Mexico! Most of them get eaten alive by vines!" Adam was practically yelling. His ears were buzzing he felt so charged up with emotions. His lack of sleep and nutrition probably wasn't helping either. Nausea rose in his chest again and Adam swallowed hard to get the bitter taste of bile out of his mouth. He hated how his mouth always tasted like puke and how he constantly felt sick.

"What's your point, Adam?" Lawrence said, exasperated. Adam thought about this for a moment. He felt like his anger was justified, but he couldn't explain why. He was at a loss for words.

"I... I don't know..." He said quietly. They were both silent for a long time.

"Adam?"

"Yea?"

"Do you want to come over for dinner?" The moment the words came out of his mouth, Lawrence regretted saying them. There was a brief pause.

"What?" Adam was barely breathing. Lawrence groaned, knowing he couldn't take it back now. He couldn't bear to repeat it though.

"Maybe... tomorrow night?"

"Seriously?"

"Yes. Here, let me give you the address." Before Adam could think, he spoke.

"I know where you live." He hadn't mentioned his payed stalking of Lawrence to anyone in a year. He immediately regretted speaking without thinking. Silently cursing he twisted himself up in the cord of his phone.

"We've moved." Lawrence said, shifting his weight with a groan.

"Oh." Adam turned on his heel. The feeling of the cord wrapping around him made him uncomfortable. "Right." Lawrence rambled off his address slowly and Adam wrote it down on the back of a photograph. "Alright... Tomorrow."

"Seven."

"Okay." Lawrence hung up without saying good-bye. Adam listened to the dial tone for a moment, going over the conversation in his head for a minute before returning the phone to its cradle. The whole thing had come out of nowhere. He was so confused over what had transpired. Dinner? It hit him suddenly he didn't own a car. Lawrence lived on the other side of town. He'd have to walk. With a groan, he collapsed back onto his bed. April could probably drive him, but that would involve inviting her, which he didn't want to do. He didn't even own anything decently nice to wear. He frowned; there was a sinking regret hanging over him now. The reasons behind accepting the invitation to dinner was lost to him.

For the first time, he noticed his apartment was a mess. He noticed the graffiti on the doors and the red paint that wasn't just chipping off, it was coming off in long strips. It was horrible but instead of doing anything about it, he slumped onto his bed and buried himself in the blankets and pretended none of it existed until he fell asleep.

--

The next day, he woke up too late in the day and felt groggy for hours. He felt nervous about the coming night, and that caused him to spend almost half an hour collapsed on his couch staring at a blank wall until ended up. Around four thirty he managed to drag himself out of his stupor. He felt as if the evening was a disaster waiting to happen. Adam dug through his clothes and in the end was still unhappy with what he was wearing. By half past five he was rushing out the door with his camera in the bag slung over his shoulder and tugging on a light blue work shirt that happened to be the only decent looking shirt he owned.

His closet was a mess of t-shirts and flannel and ugly work shirts. April laughed at his fashion sense, or lack there of, practically every time she looked in his closet. She was always trying to get him to go shopping with her, but he always found some excuse not to. He lived in jeans and plain shirts and sneakers.

He was halfway across town when he felt pair of hands on his collar and another pair on his back and his bag had slid from his shoulder. He was being dragged into the darkness of an alley, but he didn't recognize what was happening. In an instant, he had been slammed against a wall and his head cracked painfully against the brick. He groaned, feeling the hands let go of him, he slumped down against the base of the wall. His neck felt wet. The hands were at his collar again, heaving him to his feet.

"I don't have any money." He said, stumbling over the words and slurring.

"What?" A voice said, but it sounded far away and scratchy, as if it were coming over a radio that wasn't quite in tune. What a day Adam was having. It was just his luck to get mugged in the twilight on his way to dinner. "shit." the voice said. Adam felt himself being searched, and partially stripped. It began to drizzle lightly. "You really don't have anything." The voice said. It almost sounded sorry for him.

Adam sat against the alley wall for an indiscernible amount of time. His head was throbbing terribly. It took him longer than he had hoped to get moving again, and when he did he ended up crawling along the ground until his equilibrium returned enough that he could stand. Once on his feet, Adam felt a rush of dizziness that forced him to close his eyes and lean against the wall for balance. It passed quickly enough though and Adam began to walk on, stopping for a moment to bend down (a mistake, he realized quickly, when he almost toppled over again) and retrieve his bag. One piece of luck, he pointed out to himself, no one had taken his camera. Miraculous, really.

It took him almost an hour to stumble the rest of the way to Lawrence's second floor apartment-house. Had Adam been more aware of his surroundings, he would have been impressed by the fact that Lawrence and his family's apartment took up the entire floor; he would have secretly envied how wealthy they were. It was because Lawrence was a doctor, he knew. Adam had always known he could never be a doctor. He hated blood. And people for that matter. He had once worked a brief stint as a hospital orderly only to find that he couldn't stand sick people and quit.

Adam knocked on the elaborate door of Lawrences home around seven-fifteen. He scratched the back of his neck idly. His hand came away feeling wet and warm and sticky, but Adam neglected to investigate it further. Adam figured he probably had a concussion or something. Or maybe he was bleeding to death. He heard the muffled sounds of voices from behind the door. They sounded frustrated, angry maybe, but hushed. The door swung open abruptly, which caught Adam off guard. Loosing his balance, he stumbled but didn't fall. Lawrence had answered the door and was now staring at him in shock. His wife was a few feet behind him, and their daughter behind her. It was such a tableau, Adam thought. Suddenly self conscious, Adam wiped away some of the wetness on his face. He was surprised to find that what was coming away on his hands was a mix of the water he'd been expecting and blood. Surely he hadn't hit his head that hard. Adam stared at the red on his hands, numb.

"God… You're a mess." He heard Lawrence say. Adam tried to clear his head. He felt so foggy.

"Am I? Fuck. Really?" He asked. Lawrence looked at him, incredulous, then nodded. "Damn." Lawrence stepped out of the doorframe to invite Adam in. At which point, Adam collapsed heavily and managed to yet again smash his head on the floor.

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**Finally, I know. It's been forever. Well, inspiration has been slow coming, and school just started back up for me, which is stressful as hell. So chapters will be slow coming, I'm afraid. I originally planned for this to be a four-parter, but it might end up longer, seeing the rate I'm going at. **

by the way, the book Adam is reading in this chapter is _The Ruins_ by Scott Smith. It just came out this summer but I felt it worked for the story (and I'd just read it when I wrote that part of the chapter, so it worked for me... )  


**Don't forget to review! **


	4. Chapter 4

**Sorry this took so long! School's started up and I've been so busy. It's a relatively short chapter, and I'm sorry for that. Please excuse any mistakes that might be there. It's un-betaed and I'm too tired to read over it again. **

**-----**

Adam found himself fading back into consciousness still on the floor of Lawrence's foyer. He was seeing a mix of red and brown. He groaned miserably. What a horrible first impression. He felt someone's hands under his arms, gently pulling him to his feet. Barely able to see, Adam was only aware that he was leaning against someone and being led away.

When he finally regained his vision and the rest of his consciousness, the first thing he saw was a pair of large, brown eyes staring at him.

"Diana, honey, back up a little, okay?" Adam blinked hard. The light, though dim, stung his eyes. He felt a soft touch against his forehead. The eyes disappeared from his line of vision to reveal a large, beautiful and curiously lean bedroom. It became apparent that he was lying against the headboard of a rather large bed, bleeding from the head and being stared at by a nine year old girl. He realized that it wasn't Lawrence cleaning him up, but his oh-so-elegant wife. Her eyes had been cold and hateful towards him at the door, but now her face had softened. She was dabbing at his head gently with something soft and absorbent. She was talking to him too, but he couldn't really hear her. Diana sat on the end of the bed and watched. "...Adam?" The sound of his name brought him back to his senses a little more. Allison smiled at him with sympathy. "You look terrible."

"I bet I do." He responded, his eyes drooping. He was confused; he had been convinced that Allison hated his guts.

"Stay awake, alright? Larry thinks you have a concussion."

"Probably." Adam sighed. "I'm really sorry." Allison and Adam had never said two words to each other. As such, Allison treating him like they'd known each other forever seemed... wrong somehow to Adam. It felt like a lie.

"What for?" Allison wasn't really listening to him, that much was clear. Although, he wasn't really listening to her either, so they were even.

"Bleeding all over your floor... giving a really bad first impression... whatever." Allison shrugged. She glanced around and picked up a hand mirror from the side table.

"Take a look at yourself before I finish up here." He wondered if it was she was trying to guilt-trip him, even just a little. Adam forced his hand to move and take the mirror. When he finally steadied his hand enough to see his reflection, Adam barely recognized himself. His face was a mass of blood and bruising. The right side of his face was covered by a huge, dark bruise that lay over his cheek like a cloth. He had a black eye on that side of his face too. He thought it looked fake. There was a deep cut across his left cheekbone and the corner of his mouth was raw. The cut and scraping under his hairline on the left side had caused that side of his face to become doused in blood. The cut was spewing blood down onto his face and down his neck. The shoulder of his t-shirt was soaked with blood too, but Adam couldn't make out where that had all come from. When he had been mugged, they had, for some god forsaken reason, stolen his nicest shirt. On top of all the blood, he was filthy.

Adam handed back the mirror and leaned his head back. Adam wanted to go to sleep and wake up when things were better. He looked practically dead. Frighteningly so. Allison continued to mop the blood off his head. Eventually she finished, taped some gauze to his wounds and after saying some things to him that he didn't quite hear, she left. It seemed unwise to leave a possible concussion victim alone, but Adam wasn't going to complain. He needed a few moments to clear his head anyway. His cuts were burning and stinging but that didn't stop him from easing his eyes closed and dozing off. He was half asleep when he heard a soft voice that he, at first, ignored but then it got annoying enough he opened his eyes. Diana was leaning against his chest.

"Wake up." She'd been the one jibing him. Adam glared at her, his head pounding.

"I'm awake."

"Good." For a kid, she's awfully grown up, Adam couldn't help but think. It made sense though; after all she'd been through. "You're not allowed to die on my parents' bed." Adam choked down a laugh. He frowned and sat up, trying hard to clear the fog from his mind.

"What?" The girl stared at him. He stared back. She shrugged.

"I'm hungry, come on." She took hold of Adams hand and tugged him up off the bed. The moment he was on his feet, a heaving dizziness overtook him and he fell forwards again. The floor seemed exceptionally hard. He tasted vomit in his mouth, mixed with the twinge of blood.

"You know what?" He said. "I think I'm just gonna stay down here." Adam closed his eyes. An intermittent amount of time passed before Adam opened his eyes. His head was killing him and he felt nauseas. Almost immediately, he pressed his eyes shut again.

"Adam? I'm going to need you to open your eyes."

"Lawrence?" He asked quietly.

"Yes. Now open your eyes." Adam did as he was told, despite his protesting head. "Good." Lawrence smiled at him in a comforting way. "Now get up, will you?" Lawrence carefully heaved Adam to his feet. He stumbled briefly, but regained his balance. "Are you alright?"

"I think so." In fact, he was feeling much better. He felt as though a drill was screwing through his temples, but otherwise he was feeling almost completely normal. His nausea had subsided, as had most of his dizziness. Lawrence hesitantly released his hold of Adams arm, testing his stability. Adam smiled in surprise that he hadn't fallen over again. He ruffled his dark hair to try and make himself look better, and when he pulled away his hand there was red blood mixed with dark flakes of drying blood on it. "Oh."

"You've had a rough time, haven't you?" Lawrence asked abruptly. Adam stared at him. The room was dead silent. He pretended not to know what he meant.

"Well, I was mugged, I think." Lawrence stared at him for a long time, long enough that Adam started to feel awkward and began shifting on uncomfortably. Lawrence sighed and shrugged his shoulders heavily. Adam watched as he crossed the bedroom to a roomy closet. In an instant Lawrence tossed a shirt at him.

"Here." He said with a smile. Adam caught it deftly, for once in his life. He looked at it skeptically.

"Pink?" Lawrence simply smiled at him and loped out of the room as quickly as he could. Shaking his head, Adam pulled the shirt on over his bloodied undershirt. It was a gorgeous shirt; Adam felt like he was ruining it just by allowing the soft material to touch him or his disgusting undershirt. It was now that he took notice of his surroundings. The room itself was beautiful. Painted a deep burgundy color, it reminded Adam of his own home, only in much better condition. The large, king sized bed fit comfortably in the room, decked out in creams and beiges. It was perfectly made, and everything was spotlessly clean. It seemed unnatural. One of the things that comforted him whenever he returned to his cruddy apartment after a long day was the clutter of his house. It felt right, homey, cozy even. All this sterile cleanliness just seemed wrong. Though tempted to dig through the side tables or the vanity against one wall or to search the closet for skeletons, Adam hesitantly left the room and ventured into the rest of the house. Following his nose, Adam found himself led to a surprisingly warm and comfortable kitchen. Painted a light yellow, it looked like the kitchen Adam had always wanted. Allison was leaning against the counter drying her hands on a dishtowel as Lawrence sat at the table and talked to her.

"Oh. Adam." Allison put down her towel. The warm look that had been on her face just a moment before disappeared. Adam smiled hesitantly. It felt strange to be smiling around this family. Lawrence ushered him to a seat at the table and after a short moment, Allison, Diana and food joined them. The meal tasted just as delicious as it had smelt, and Adam had to restrain himself from simply shoving it down his throat. Despite his occasional waves of nausea, the food was just too good to turn down. It didn't help that he hadn't had a decent meal in almost a week. There was almost no conversation, save for two short exchanges. The first was Diana.

"Gosh, don't you ever eat at home?" The Gordon family had been staring for a while at how starved Adam seemed. In response to her comment, Adam glared at her.

"Of course I do." He said indignantly, but his voice was barely above a murmur.

"Well it sure doesn't seem like you do." Adam frowned but didn't respond. Later on, once dinner had just about been finished, they had fallen into another uncomfortable silence. Allison glanced in Adam's direction, and then spoke.

"Adam, are you from the south?" Stunned, Adam eyed her questioningly.

"Why would you think that?" It was true; he was from the South... sort of. He knew his family considered North Carolina the South, but he didn't. Not where they had lived anyway. Besides, after moving as far west as possible, practically fleeing the east coast in favor of the far more dangerous west coast. Adam had spent a long time forcing himself to loose the tiny traces of an accent he had. The last thing he needed at this point in his life was people judging him because he was Southern too.

"Faulkner," she said softly and gently, yet it sounded fake and insincere to him. "He was a Southern writer, wasn't he?" Adam breathed a sigh of relief. He shrugged.

"We're not related or anything," He said abruptly. "If that's what you're asking." Allison look offended. It was then that Adam knew they could never be friends and would never truly like each other.

"I was just noting."

"Right." Lawrence glanced back and forth between them. The underlying hostility was palatable in the room.

"Well, are you?" Lawrence asked in an attempt to ease the tension, though it was a futile effort.

"Am I what?" Adam asked, never moving his eyes from Allison.

"Southern."

"Not really." Glumly, Adam slouched back in his chair.

Half an hour later Adam was saying good-bye and trying hard to delay his exit. He was reluctant to go out on the street again, however unlikely it was that he'd be mugged again.

"You ought 'a come visit me sometimes, Lawrence. I could use some company." He said when they were alone enough.

"I'll try to."

"I've gotta clean out my darkroom sometime this year... I haven't even opened the door since--" He cut himself off. The room suddenly felt dark and heavier. Trying to lighten the mood just a little, Adam continued. "I'm sure all the chemicals have gone bad... and I don't want to be alone when I crack that door open." Lawrence smiled understandingly.

"Of course."

"There's a bunch of photos of you that you might want." Lawrence cringed slightly. "They're pretty good pictures, I'll have you know."

"I'm sure they are."

"I majored in Art, you know." Adam argued defensively.

"I didn't know you went to college." Adam placed his hand on the cool doorknob.

"Thanks." He grumbled sarcastically. "Now you know."

"I didn't mean it like that."

"Sure." He turned the knob. "Well, thanks for dinner... and all your hospitality."

"Anytime." Lawrence shifted his weight with a groan, and then checked his watch. "It's getting late. Do you want a ride home?" Adam pushed open the door.

"Oh, no. I don't wanna be a hassle. Thanks though."

"You're sure?" He stepped out of the door. "It's no trouble."

"I'm fine. Honest." Adam smiled. "I'll come by sometime and return your shirt. Thanks a lot." Lawrence eyed him carefully for a long moment, as though taking in every detail.

"Do you at least want to borrow a jacket maybe?" Adam shook his head. True, it was fall, but it was still warm in the evenings.

"Well. Good night." Adam began to back down the hall, only now noticing how gaudily beautiful the building was.

"Good night." Lawrence half-heartedly called out after Adam was almost to the stairs.

--

The walk home was pleasent. Adam felt good about walking; he didn't exercise half as much as he probably should, so walking made him feel a little bit less lazy. In a burst of energy, he even jogged for a block. He was practically home when he noticed that a couple had fallen into step behind him. His apartment building was in sight. He had become increasingly paranoid over the past year, and the feeling of having people follow so closely behind him made the hair on his neck stand up and his spine shiver. Speeding up subtlety, Adam hoped desperately that he could get home before being forced to break into a panicked run. His eyes locked on the door of his building (less than three blocks away now), and his hand gripping the key in his pocket so tightly he practically was cutting into his hand, Adam concentrated on getting home. The couple behind him was talking quietly, which made Adam even more uncomfortable. Mostly it was just the woman speaking, and the man would occasionally grunt in agreement. Finally, the man spoke and Adam froze dead in his tracks for a moment.

He knew that voice.

How could he forget? Who could forget the voice that threatened your life then condemned you to death-by-dehydration? Terrified, Adam began walking again as quickly as he could while being as inconspicuous as humanly possible. It was him. It was Jigsaw and Adam could barely keep himself from screaming for the police and running and banging on doors. A block away from home and getting closer with every trembling step. Two buildings away from home, he was convinced he could make it. One building away. Adam was so close he could practically feel the metal of the doorknob beneath against his fingers and palm.

"Adam?" The woman's voice asked innocently from behind him. Adam froze, panicking. It was all a question of whether he continued to walk, or run, or whether he turned around. "That is you, isn't it?"

"Adam?" Jigsaw asked in the same tone of voice. Shaking, Adam slowly turned around.

He was face to face with Jigsaw and his pretty apprentice for almost a minute before the woman clocked him over the head with a blunt object.

This had truly been one of the worst days of his life.

-----

**Well, there we are. :D The next chapter, hopefully, won't be as long in coming. I've got some actual ideas this time! oh, and by the way, as for my estimate of only four chapters... it doesn't look like that will be happening... Whether that's good or bad it up to you.  
**

**Please remember to review! **


	5. Chapter 5

Adam awoke groggily in a dimly lit room. He was lying on a bed, with his legs hanging uncomfortably over the footboard. He groaned miserably. Memories of the previous day were washing over him and he noticed he was barefoot. Again. His entire face was throbbing with pain. His mouth was the worst though. His cheeks were smarting like crazy, his gums felt like they were being pricked by hundreds of tiny needles and bleeding terribly. His teeth even hurt. All he could taste was blood. A terrible headache assaulted his head. His fingers floated upwards to feel his face, but instead of feeling the soft skin of his cheek, he felt wires. A mesh of wires that, as far as he could tell, dug into and through his cheek and connected with his jaw. A scream rose in his throat, but all that came out was a muffled cry. Half to panic, Adam tried to open his mouth, but found that he couldn't. 

'Oh fuck.' he thought. His jaw was wired shut. They'd wired his jaw shut, and sloppily at that. Shaking, Adam sat up and inspected his surroundings for escape possibilities. There wasn't even a door. A single light bulb hung from the ceiling, and the only furniture was a mirror on the wall and the bed he was sitting on. Adam sadly noted that it was nicer and newer than the bed in his apartment. Dizzy with pain, he stumbled across the room to look at himself in the mirror. The sight of himself made his stomach heave, and he practically vomited. Turning away, he took a few deep breaths, knowing that if he puked, he'd just have to swallow it again, seeing as he couldn't open his teeth at all. The image of himself lingered in his vision even with his eyes closed. Those horrible bruises, the blood... worst of all were the wires that distorted his features. It was gruesome. Once his dry heaving stopped, Adam forced himself to make a more serious study of the apparatus attached to his mouth. His fingertips gingerly mapped out two thick wires, or perhaps bars that ran parallel along his jaw line and below his cheekbones. Connecting these was a series of thinner wires that criss-crossed back and forth and held his teeth tightly against each other. A faint noise drifted through the walls. Adam could barely hear it at first, but after a moment the noise grew louder. It was the sound of people talking. In a hurry, Adam had his ear pressed against the wall. The pain in his face was a constant protest, but he pressed himself tightly against the plaster.

"I don't understand this." One voice said. Adam recognized it as belonging to the woman. "I don't understand why we don't just kill him now." Adam gasped.

"He hasn't learned his lesson yet."

"And he won't! This is pointless. It's been a year and he's back to the same vices."

"He has potential, Amanda. I believe he will learn." Adam closed his eyes, half in exhaustion, half in concentration. He could imagine the woman, Amanda, sneering on the other side of the wall. "He needs support this time. He'll need help once this is over."

"But that's not the point of this! He was supposed to learn his lesson the last time! I don't understand you anymore."

"You will." There was a pause. "Now go and speak with him." Adam leapt back from the wall and scrambled back onto the bed. He huddled in the corner, eyes wide, waiting. Across the room, a door that had been so perfectly in line with the walls that it had been invisible swung open. Adam pressed himself against the wall, and stared at the imposing woman in the doorframe. She stared at him coolly for a long time.

"What do you want from me?" He said, but it came out slurred and mumbled.

"I can't understand you." She said calmly, over-enunciating every word. She began to approach him slowly, letting her shoes tap loudly on the floor. As she got closer, Adam recoiled into his corner like a puppy. The look on Amanda's face seemed to say she even saw him as a puppy that had been kicked around a little too much. Adam looked around her to eye the door. He figured that if he caught her off guard, he might be able to escape. "You see, Adam, if it was up to me, I would've killed you by now. John wants you to learn your lesson, but this is my game. I planned it and it ends when I kill you in cold blood." Adam glared at her stonily, but he was positive he looked about as strong as he felt. Amanda continued to stroll towards him, and as she spoke, Adam slowly arranged himself so his feet were flat on the bed, ready to spring. "You're a stain on society, Adam, and you'll never change. I know that... and I think you know that too." Her voice was smooth and sensuous, but frightening as well.

"I didn't do anything wrong!" Adam exclaimed feebly.

"I told you, Adam. I - can't - under - stand - you." She smiled a dark smile. "Aren't you going to ask what your game is?"

"If I'm gonna die anyway, what's the point?"

"You see," she continued, ignoring his response completely. "My goal in all this is to make you suffer, then kill you. That's all." She smiled sweetly; Adam felt sick. For a moment, Amanda glanced behind her, checking the door, and Adam saw this as his one chance. He leapt forwards off the bed with a growl that tugged at the wires entangled among his bones. Catching her by surprise, he tackled Amanda to the ground, his hands at her shoulders. On the floor, he stared at her for half a second. She looked surprised and indignant. Feeling victorious, Adam scrambled forwards, slipping and sliding towards the door. Half way there and a pair of hands grabbed him around the ankles and pulled him down. He fell from his half-crawling position and smashed the side of his face against the floor. The pain was blinding; spots danced in front of his eyes. He tried to crawl forwards again. His fingers dug into the ground, but Amanda held tight. He was half way to his feet once, but she dragged him back down. He landed roughly on the palms of his hands with a grunt, his wired face mere centimeters from the ground. He scrambled forwards, desperate, his fingers almost touching the door, the rough ground ripping up the palms of his hands, but Amanda was much stronger than she looked and she was slowly dragging him backwards. He was desperate and terrified and on the verge of tears as she forced him back towards the bed in the corner of the room. Adam felt her hands on his shoulders and before he knew it he was being heaved upwards and tossed onto the bed. He landed heavily and painfully, unable to believe that she had been able to do that, his shoulders and cheeks complaining loudly. Adam felt a heavy weight climb onto his body; he felt the jab of bones against his hips. Still hissing with pain, Adam pried his eyes open only to see that Amanda had straddled herself over his torso. Adam thought to himself that it was like sex, only angrier and much less enjoyable.

"It's like you're retarded or something. I say, 'I want to make you suffer' and you just make me angry." She took hold of his wrists one by one and hand-cuffed him to the bedposts. He didn't resist, partially because he was too tired and in too much pain, but also because he was nervous to make more trouble. "Now I'll hurt you as much as possible before your spirit is crushed." Her smile and voice was sickeningly sweet. Amanda leaned forward, her face mere inches from him. "I'm going enjoy breaking you, Adam. I really am." Her nimble fingers caressed his cheek, ran through his hair, outlined his eyebrows and down his nose. Adam recoiled against the headboard with as much disgust and hate he could muster. "I just want to let you know now, that everything will be a lot easier for you if you cooperate, okay? You're going to end up dead in the end either way; you just might have fewer broken bones if you're a good boy." She tapped him playfully on the nose.

"I fucking hate you." Adam hissed.

"It's like you just don't listen." One moment Adam was staring at her viciously, trying to kill her with his eyes and the next her hand was over his mouth and nose and he couldn't breathe. His eyes grew wide as his lungs began to burn. Tugging against his constraints, Adam's body began to writhe against Amanda's weight. She held fast, leaning against his face. His bare heels dug into the bed beneath him, his hips bucked against Amanda's, their bones grinding, as he fought to breathe. His lungs gave a harsh protest, burning and screaming. Adam realized he was moaning, screaming as best he could. Amanda's palm was pushing down on the wire work closest to his mouth as well, and the pain was excruciating. Finally, Adam found himself on the verge of giving up. He was tired, hurting... everything hurt... and the edges of his vision were growing dark. He was about to pass out when Amanda finally relinquished her hold over him.

Adam gasped for breath, heaving it through his teeth, exhausted, eyes half closed. His chest was heaving, but Amanda's weight kept him from completely filling his lungs.

"There," she said calmly, as if she hadn't just almost suffocated him. "Are you going to behave now?" Glaring at her miserably, tragically, he nodded. "Good."

With that, she stood and left the room. Closing the door behind her, she left him handcuffed to the bed and sore. The lock clicked painfully loud in Adam's ears.

---

Three days later and Adam was dying again. His shoulders were sore, his wrists raw, and he'd been living off tiny amounts of water. Twice a day Amanda had come in and poured a small amount of water down his throat in such a way that he ended up coughing up most of it. The pain in his mouth and face had subsided to a constant ache over the past few days, though it still hurt and stung every time he moved. Adam stayed as still as possible on the bed for hours and hours at a time. At first, his mind wandered terribly, but now that he had lost his energy, Adam found himself staring at the wall blankly for long amounts of time. Constantly exhausted, Adam forced himself to stay awake for as long as possible, but that was, at most, mere hours at a time. That afternoon, the door slid open, too loud for Adams now sensitive ears, and Amanda slunk in. The silence of the past three days had wrecked havoc on his senses. Everything was too sensitive. Adam felt his eyes blurring as he followed her motion. Promising to never lay in bed for three days ever again, he watched numbly as Amanda strode over to him slowly, casually unbuttoning her shirt.

"I swear," she said softly. "It's like I can't breathe." She deftly undid the final button and sighed. "I wear my clothes entirely too tight." As she peeled off her shirt, Adam caught a glimpse of the maze of scars that lined her arms. He recoiled away from her as she got closer. To his distaste, and the protest of his skin, Amanda crawled up next to him, sickly nuzzling into his collarbone. Without looking, she pulled a pair of scissors out of the back pocket of her pants and cut off his blood stained shirt. Her delicate fingers sent shivers down his spine and across his chest.

"Here's the plan, okay?" she mumbled into his neck. Her breath was warm, but a cold sweat was beginning to creep across Adam's skin. He wasn't sure what she was trying to accomplish with all this, but he didn't like it. "We're going to take you to your dear Doctor Gordon's," her fingers blindly explored his damaged features, gliding over his cheekbones, following his eyebrows and tracing down his nose. "And then I'm going to shoot you." She sat up to stare at him, her short hair falling over her eyes. "And I swear to god, I'll aim to kill." At that, she leapt off of him and went out the door. A few tense moments past before she re-entered, tugging on a tight t-shirt. "So, I guess this trap isn't really for you. The other one wasn't either..." Amanda paused for a brief moment to look at herself in the mirror. "Not really. You're a pawn, Mr. Faulkner." She turned to him, her eyes blazing intensely. She strode over to him confidently, taking a graceful seat on the edge of the mattress. The tips of her fingers hovered over the wires still ripping into his mouth. "You always have been." Amanda took hold of the middle of a pair of wires and twisted. They tightened, tearing viciously at his gums and teeth. The pain that shot through him was blinding. Spots danced in front of his eyes, almost whiting out the wry smile on Amanda's lips. He screamed desperately; his voice was a muffled, agonized cry that hurt his throat. His arms instinctively tried to curl inwards, only to be caught on the handcuffs. Among all this, Adam felt the raw flesh at his wrists rip and trickles of blood begin to slide down his arms. Tears dripped down his face, stinging his bruises and cuts, which only made him cry harder, despite his best intentions not to. He was trying to hard to be strong, but failing miserably. Just as the pain began to subside, Amanda twisted another pair of wires and it intensified again. She did this three more times and by the end, Adam was a crumbled mess. Any dignity he may have had was now lost. As he wallowed in his misery and anguish, Amanda gently removed his handcuffs and examined the wounds on his wrists. Determining that he wasn't going to bleed to death, that they were just surface wounds, practically just terrible rug burns, Amanda left him to clot and scab on his own without any bandaging. She left the room with a look of smug triumph across her features. The door slammed shut and Adam pulled his body up into itself. Curled up as small as he could get, Adam pressed his bleeding, sore wrists against the cool skin of his chest, adding additional pressure with his knees. The relief was minimal, but it was something.

He was broken, in a way. He hurt so much, everywhere, that he thought that he would welcome death. Though, he wasn't positive he could take getting shot again, if it didn't kill him right away. If he had to get shot, and he thought about this in some detail over the next few hours, he would prefer to take one to the head. No pain, no lingering. For the most part, anyway. He'd heard of people who were shot in the head and survived, but not if you took a bullet to your spinal cord or straight through the temples. Adam cringed just thinking about it. The idea of his brains splattered all over was entirely unappealing. Despite his cynical exterior, Adam was a helpless romantic deep down. Getting shot in the chest or stomach would hurt like hell, but Adam could imagine bleeding to death on Lawrence's floor as the doctor tried in vain to save his life. Adam would apologize, he decided, because he wanted to that last, good word. He wanted to repent, and while dying seemed like a good enough time to go it. Though, knowing his luck, Adam figured he would probably take a shot to the neck, which would hurt hurt hurt, or to the artery in his thigh, which would not only hurt as he bled to death, and damn quickly too, but it wouldn't be graceful or romantic at all. It would be hideously ugly.

Adam could imagine (and did, for eventually collapsed into a fitful sleep and dreamt of his own death) being shot in the back and falling forwards into Lawrence's arms. That would be a dramatic way to die. In his dream, Lawrence opened the door slowly, casually, unaware that anything was wrong.

"Lawrence?" Adam would groan. Gasp. Bang. Darkness. Dead.

The end.

--

When Adam awoke a little over four hours after Amanda had left him that last time, he was groggy and his face was throbbing. After a moment he realized that Amanda was hovering over him, watching him sleep. He jumped in fright, pressing against the wall.

"Ready to go?" Amanda said, tossing a shirt at him. Adam barely caught it, as he was hesitant to reach out and stretch the newly formed scabs over his raw wrists. He stared at the shirt. Pink. It was the shirt that Lawrence had loaned him earlier in the week, though now a little worse than wear, and flecked with blood stains. "Put it on and get up." Adam put on the shirt as slowly as possible, taking long moments to button each button. The fabric felt cool and sweet against his hot skin. When he refused to move from the bed, refused to stand up, Amanda brandished a gun. "Get up. Now." She commanded. For a reason Adam didn't quite understand yet, he shook his head, 'no'. This infuriated Amanda, who had seemed pissy when he first saw her. "I'll fucking shoot you right now, Adam. Now get the fuck up." It was clear she was trying to seem calm and collected even though she wasn't. Adam shook his head again. Amanda crossed the room in three steps and took a heavy swing at Adam's face. Her fist connected and in the explosion of pain that followed, Adam collapsed onto the bed and was forcibly removed from it. He felt a light prick in on his arm, and then felt himself being dragged. Next thing he knew he was laying on a cold cement floor and his hands were being bound behind his back. So this was it. Everything was moving too fast for Adam to keep up, and he could only barely feel what was happening to him. It was all like a nightmare; he was unable to keep his footing, his vision grew dark and blurry no matter what he did to try and clear it, his eyelids felt heavy, his limbs were uncooperative. He was dimly aware of being tossed into what felt like the back of a car before he let his lethargy get the better of him.

He felt the jolt of a car coming to an abrupt stop when he awoke. He still felt bleary, but slightly better. His eyes wouldn't focus though, and Adam found that more than a little distressing. He felt another prick, this time closer to his neck than he was comfortable with, and his senses seemed to clear. Amanda's face became clear above him, a needle clutched in her hand. He made a questioning noise.

"We drugged you, dumbass." As his mind began to clear out the fog, the pain returned to him. His entire body was aching, though the horrendous feeling in his jaw and cheeks had begun to lighten in response to the rest of his body's complaints. He remembered as a child when his sister would complain of being hurt, he would pinch her someplace else and say, "Well now that first one doesn't hurt so much, does it?" It was the same idea. The idea that his body couldn't handle all of this pain at once, so it was diverting his attention was unpleasant for him. He imagined what it would be like to feel all of it at once and cringed. The next moment Adam felt the barrel of a gun at the base of his spine and a hand on his elbow. He allowed himself to be led up into the last building he had been in before all this. The last time he had stumbled up, half unconscious, and now he was being led at gunpoint. Adam resolved never to visit Lawrence again, seeing as nothing but horrible consequences came from it. He was surprised no one was around, but then again, it was probably late at night, and just because people wandered the halls at all hours of the night in his apartment building didn't mean that happened everywhere. They reached the floor of Lawrence's apartment, and Adam's stomach turned over. Amanda had explained more thoroughly the details of her plan to him in the car, but he hadn't heard most of it. The calming sounds of her voice had lulled him into a strange state. Whatever the details, Adam understood the generalities of the plan and was not happy with the results. No matter what happened, it was Amanda's intention that he ended up dead.

She walked him right up to Lawrence's door. Once there, she shifted the gun to his neck before slowly backing away. Adam didn't even need to look to see that the gun was still aimed at him. Adam thought miserably that this would be the second time in a week that he would bleed all over Lawrence's floor. And blood is one stain that never comes out. Not really. He felt even worse about ruining Lawrence's shirt. For a brief moment he entertained the idea of taking it off, only to decide not to. He'd rather not bleed to death half naked.

"Ring the bell." Amanda's soft voice traveled easily down the hall to him. Nervousness, rather than fear, filled Adam's senses. One small part of him was trying to plan an escape, even though he knew it would never work. He decided the best he could do was keep Lawrence or his family from getting shot too.

Reaching out a trembling hand towards the doorbell, Adam ran his fingers over his marred face on more time. His face was swollen; he could feel it now. He must look like death warmed over and wrapped in wires. A terrifying visage, for sure. Praying that Lawrence, and not Diana, answered the door, Adam shakily rang the bell. A long moment passed as there were shuffling noises inside, along with the faint mumble of voices.

The door swung open.

"Adam!" Lawrence gasped in horror. Well, Adam thought, one prayer had been answered.

"Get out of the way." He said as clearly as he could through his tightly clenched teeth. Lawrence looked both confused and concerned.

"What happened to--" The gunshot rang out horrendously loud in the quiet of the building. Adam felt a hot pain in his lower back, just to the left of his spine, and knew he'd been hit. He heard muffled and terrified screaming and it took him a moment to realize the voice was his. His eyes widened and he stared at Lawrence, who was slightly blood splattered, staring back with confusion painted on his features. Adam felt himself getting weak. He felt the tiny hole in his stomach where the bullet had gone through, staring at the blood pouring out of him. He lifted his eyes to Lawrence one more time before his knees gave out and he collapsed heavily, his bloodied hand reaching out. Lawrence caught him, but just barely, and dragged him inside, kicking the door shut.

The last thing Adam remembered was Lawrence calling for someone, for god's sake, to call for an ambulance and trying desperately to keep Adam's quickly waning attention. Even as Adam's eyes lolled around the room, Lawrence continued to snap at him, talk to him, shake him carefully. The very last thing he remembered was the hidden disgust and terror in Lawrence's eyes, even as he tried to keep him conscious. Adam sympathized. He knew what he must look like right now. It would sicken him too.

He passed out knowing that he had just suffered the worst week of his life, and a part of him, rather too close to the surface for comfort, wished that he would finally just die already.

---------

**So, there we are. I'm sorry it's so long in coming, but I've been busy and distracted. School… other fandoms which have caught my attention (anyone seen the new Bond movie? _Casino Royale _was amazing), etc. Anyway, here it is, and a bit longer than usual, so I hope that makes up for it. And I told a bunch of you I wasn't going to kill off Adam, and I'm not. I promise. I just like roughing him up a bit. I mean, come on. It's so easy.   
**

**-K **


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